Today I thought I’d switch gears and write about my current workout schedule, or training split if you will. I almost hesitate to call it a “training split” because that’s a term I hear a lot of fitness experts use and I obviously am by no means a serious bodybuilder. That being said, I have been focusing a lot more of my workouts on strength training lately (and less on cardio) and it has made going to the gym more enjoyable and less of a chore. When I’m at the gym now, I’m not thinking about weight loss near as much as I used to. When I am lifting weights, I am focusing on building muscle so I can be stronger and burn more fat throughout out the day. This shift in my thinking has really helped motivate me to get my workouts in on days when I would typically be tempted to skip them. Additionally, time goes by WAY faster when you’re strength training as opposed to spending 45 minutes doing mindless cardio.

Don’t get me wrong – I still do cardio. I always warm up with 5 minutes on the elliptical, and I finish every workout with 15-20 minutes of some sort of cardio. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes it’s less; but 15-20 seems to be the sweet spot for me. Ideally, this is spent doing HIIT on the stair master, but I also enjoy walking on the treadmill and doing hills on the stationary bike.

My current workout schedule that I have really been enjoying lately is a 5 day split, which I will dive into below. However since I only go to the gym 3 to 4 days a week right now (that’s what works for me), it takes me about a week and a half to get through the entire split. I wrote this schedule by combining ideas from my own past workout routines as well as ideas from current fitness gurus I follow on social media. Every time I complete a workout I am seriously sore for days…so basically I am pretty much sore all the time, lol. While I am working out, I record how many sets and reps I do of each exercise on my phone as well as much weight I use. This is a great way for me to track my progress and is a reference for me to refer back to when planning future workouts.

As a reminder, the following routine is what has been working for me and is what I personally have been liking. Everyone is different, and I know a lot of people dislike strength training and prefer cardio. If there is one thing I have learned over my many years of experience with weight loss, it’s that the right kind of exercise is exercise that you will STICK WITH, so find what you like and do it!

Here is my current training split!

Day 1: Biceps and shoulders

Single lateral raises 3×12

Barbell curls 3×12

Overhead press (dumbbell) 3×12

Alternating bicep curls 3×12

Alternating front raises 3×12

Cable curls 3×12

Day 2: Legs (glutes and hamstrings focus)

Seated leg curls 3×15

Single leg deadlifts 3×10 each leg

Sumo squats 3×8

Walking lunges 3×10 each leg

Glute kickbacks 3×10 each leg

Stiff legged deadlifts (Romanian deadlifts) 3×12

Day 3: Back and abs

Lat pulldowns 4×12

Standing close grip cable pulls 3×15

Dumbbell rows 3×10

Stiff arm lat push downs 3×12

Ab machine one 3×15

Ab machine two 3×15

(lol I know my ab workout needs some improvement, but right now I just use two of the ab machines at the gym which I call “ab machine one” and “ab machine two,” ha!)

Day 4: Chest and triceps

Chest press machine 3×15

Tricep pressdown (rope) 3×15

Smith machine bench press 3×12

Tricep machine 3×15

Flies 3×10

Overhead tricep extensions 3×15

Day 5: Legs (quads and calves focus)

Seated calf press 4×20

Single leg extension 3×12 each leg

Leg press 4×12

Adductor machine 3×15

Squats (Smith machine) 3×8

Standing calf raises 4×15

Hope everyone is having a great week, and thanks for stopping by the blog!

My favorite part about Weight Watchers is that I literally eat WHATEVER I WANT. There are no foods or food groups that are off limits, which is great for me because to be honest, I stray far from a lot of the traditional “diet foods.” I eat a lot of carbs, a lot of healthy fat, and an adequate amount of protein – but not very much meat. While I am not a vegetarian, I tend to lean more towards a plant based diet when I am at home for no reason other than I just don’t really like cooking meat and I don’t love the taste of a lot of it. That being said, one of my long-term goals that I strive towards every day is to eat more fruits and vegetables. I love the sheer volume of these foods that you can eat for such a small amount of calories. Additionally, they fill you up, keep you satisfied and make you feel GOOD. Best of all, fruits and veggies are ZERO smart points so you can eat an unlimited amount of them on WW.

Probably the only advantage about having a lot of weight to lose is that I get a decent amount of smart points to work with. I know a lot of people following the WW plan only get 30 sp per day so I am enjoying the 48 points I get while I can! For those who aren’t familiar with WW, your daily points allotment is calculated by a formula based off of gender, height, weight and activity level – so as you lose weight your points go down. I started at 51 points and am down to 48 after losing 30 pounds, so it’s probably safe to guesstimate that they go down by about 1 point for every 10 pounds you lose, with a minimum daily total of 30. The smart points value of food is calculated based on the calories, saturated fat, sugar and protein content of the food.

My work schedule doesn’t allow for a lot of snacking throughout the day, so I tend to divide my points up as follows: 13-15 for breakfast (depending on if I have coffee), 12-15 for lunch, and 18-22 for dinner and any snacks or unplanned food/drinks I may have throughout the day.

Breakfast is pretty much the exact same thing every single day: two pieces of avocado toast with goat cheese for a total of 13 sp. I use a locally made multi-grain flax bread from a place called Bay Bread (7 sp for 2 slices), one small avocado, (5 sp) and a couple tablespoons of crumbled goat cheese (1 sp).

Lunch has to be something that can be easily packed and taken to work, and my current trend has been to pack a bit of a smorgasbord of food. I love eating some sort of combination of hard boiled eggs (4 sp for 2 eggs), string cheese (1-3 sp depending on the brand), fruit, granola bars (4-8 sp), nuts (6 sp), yogurt (2-4 sp), crackers (3 sp), and hummus (2-3 sp) with veggies. I also enjoy an Amys frozen meal (13-15 sp) on occasion (once a week or so) that I will pack with fruit.

When I am feeling ambitious I will actually cook something to eat throughout the week for lunches, such a veggie pizza (10 sp per slice) or some sort of pasta (10-13 sp). I’ll pack these up with fruit, string cheese and/or a couple of hard boiled eggs.

As I mentioned previously, I don’t really do a ton of snacking but when I do I try to eat fruit, hard boiled eggs, a protein bar, nuts, etc. Below you can see a picture of my “snack basket” which has a lot of my favorite bars that range from 4 to 8 sp each. I also LOVE to make huge fruit smoothies with frozen fruit, a ton of fresh spinach, and 1/2 cup of orange juice. My favorite fruit combos for smoothies are banana/pear/pineapple and banana/blueberry/grape. Technically, you are supposed to count the points from fruits and veggies when they are blended into drinks but I’ll be honest – I don’t count them. Since the only ingredient I actually track is the orange juice, that makes these delicious smoothies a grand total of 3 sp.

For dinner, my favorite thing to make lately is homemade vegetarian sushi. OMG, it is so good. I use 1/2 cup of sushi rice (9 sp) and 2 sheets of nori to make 2 rolls. If you use all veggies for the filling you could keep these rolls as low as 9 sp for 2 rolls, but I love to include avocado (2 sp) and cream cheese (4 sp) in mine as well. Sweet potato (3 sp) is another favorite of mine to include, along with shredded carrot, cucumber, lettuce, and anything else I feel like throwing in. The rolls below are the ones I made last night and they were SO GOOD. They had avocado, sweet potato, cream cheese and carrot, and of course some spicy mayo on the side.

I also try to make fish once every couple weeks. My current favorite is this wild-caught Alaskan salmon I purchase frozen in individual 5 oz packages from a place called Lucky’s Market. I typically like to eat it with potatoes and veggies. The plate below is 14 smart points – 4 sp for the salmon, 6 sp for the potatoes (8 ounces) and 4 sp for the tablespoon of olive oil I used to prepare the food.

Other things I like to make for dinner include tacos with ground turkey, soup, breakfast for dinner (usually eggs, potatoes and fruit), pasta with veggies, and vegetarian burrito bowls.

I hope you enjoyed this snapshot of the foods I have been enjoying lately since I started Weight Watchers! Please let me know any other food-related posts you’d like to see. I am planning on doing some full day of eating posts (What I Eat In A Day) as well as some restaurant focused food posts, with tips on calculating points when you are eating out.

Good morning! I’m here with my bi-annual, sporadic unplanned blog post with an update on my life. Hopefully we can make these more frequent than twice a year, but we shall see.

Today we’re going to focus on a weight loss update! For those who don’t know me in real life or follow me on Instagram (username is @kristaberg27 – add me!!) then you might not know that I am now doing Weight Watchers. I started on May 12th and have been going strong ever since. For those who are not familiar with the WW program, members use a points system to track all of their food and can expect to lose 1-2 lbs per week. The current system utilizes Smart Points, which are calculated based on a food’s calories, saturated fat, sugar and protein. Every person is allotted a specific number of daily smart points, and this number is based on gender, height, weight and activity level. Additionally, members receive 42 “weekly points” that are essentially extra points that may optionally be used on whatever you would like (cheat meals, etc.).

The plan may sound kind of complicated to follow, but it is actually very simple. There is an app for your phone that has a database full of points values for almost every food you can imagine. There is also a barcode scanner which will scan products and automatically calculate points, and there is an option to add your own foods and recipes. Something else I love about the app is the Connect feature. Connect is basically like a Facebook page for Weight Watchers. Members post updates, pictures, before & afters, and pretty much anything you want and receive likes and words of encouragement from other members. This is especially helpful for people like me who have an online-only membership (the other option is to have a standard membership which includes access to weekly in-person meetings in your area).

I am more than happy to explain the WW process in more detail, and am thinking about starting to post some What I Eat In A Day blogs. If anyone is interested in any of these please let me know!

Oh my gosh, I almost forgot to share the most important part… how much weight I’ve lost!

The picture on the left was taken in May and the one the right was taken this past Sunday. There is a 25 pound difference in the two photos 🙂 Altogether I am down about 28 pounds since beginning the program and I am very happy with these results!

I feel like I have so much more to say about WW and my weight loss journey thus far. Those who have been following me for a while know that this is not my first go-round and my thought process and feelings on the process have honestly been so much different this time around. I will have to elaborate in another blog post because I think that a lot of people could relate to what I’m going through and have been thinking about.

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Thanks so much for reading! Please let me know any questions that you may have or content that you would like to see on this blog. I’d really appreciate it 🙂

I decided yesterday to film an impromptu vlog on my YouTube channel. I’ve really been into YouTube lately and watching other people’s vlogs so hopefully you enjoy it. I will link it down below, but for those who are not interested in video posts here is the jist of it:

I got a new kitty! Her name is Ember and I adopted her from a friend who couldn’t keep her. It has been a challenging transition with regards to getting Mikey adjusted but things are going better. I had to keep them separated for about 6 weeks and have just recently started letting them spend extended periods of time together unsupervised. Despite the challenges it’s presented, I am so glad that she has joined our little family because I love her to death. She’s adorable and so so sweet.

My sister got married! She was married in September and as her maid of honor I put together her shower and bachelorette party over the summer. We held the shower at my house, and for the bachelorette party I booked a wine tour on the peninsula. Everything went off without a hitch and she and her new husband have been loving life as a married couple. Here are some pics from the events, starting with her bridal shower, then bachelorette party, then of course the big day!

I do a quick house tour in my vlog! It’s long over due.

Lastly, I have some goals for the new year. I’d be lying if I said 2016 was my greatest year, because to be honest I had my rough moments. I’m ready for 2017 and I’m ready for a fresh start. Here are some things I’d like to work on this upcoming year:

Lose 50 pounds

Pay off the rest of my student loans (or come as close as possible)

Be on my phone less, and be more present in the moment

Those goals might sound pretty unoriginal and cliche, but, it is what it is.

I hope everyone has a great weekend and has some fun ringing in the new year.

It’s been exactly 5 weeks, or 35 days, since I “recommitted” myself to tracking calories, exercising, losing wight – the whole shebang. I thought I would share how I’m feeling at this point, what results I’m seeing, and what has been helping me to stay focused this time around.

First of all, the numbers. I’m not ready to share my weight yet (though that may be coming in the future), but I will say that in 35 days I have lost 12.5 pounds and I could not be more pleased with that number. Here are my weekly weigh-in results for the last 5 weeks:

3/10/16: starting day; no loss

3/17/16: – 5.0 lbs

3/24/16: – 0 lbs (no change)

3/31/16: -2.3 lbs

4/7/16: -2.3 lbs

4/14/16: – 2.5 lbs

Total loss: 12.5 lbs

I wrote about how I was frustrated after seeing no change in my weight during week 2, but I trusted in the process and kept pushing forward. It paid off, and I saw respectable losses the next three weeks. However, I am noticing that my weight still fluctuates every single day and I know this because my efforts to not weigh myself on a daily basis have failed. I never recommend stepping on the scale every day because the fluctuations can play mind tricks on you, but I just haven’t had the willpower to stop doing it yet. It actually has helped reiterate to me that losing weight is 100% about long term results, and what you do in a single day will NOT affect your weight in the long run. It is about all of the little changes and the effort you put in over a period of time that slowly adds up.

I haven’t noticed any changes with how my clothes fit yet, but I have observed changes in a couple of other areas. For one, I have noticed a remarkable difference in how I feel on a day to day basis and my motivation to get tasks done during the day has improved drastically. For example, I’ve been on a “staycation” this past week and rather than lie around and do nothing every day, I have been spring cleaning my entire house, going to the gym every day, eating healthy (for the most part), and I even started reading a book for the first time in ages. This sudden enthusiam to be productive doesn’t totally come as a surprise to me though, because when my eating habits are in check, the rest of my life seems to come together as well. Does anyone else feel this way?

I also have noticed some slight improvements in my workouts. I can go longer and harder on the stair master and I have been increasing the weights during strength training every week. I am starting to get more comfortable with being uncomfortable at the gym, which is important because to move forward you have to get out of your comfort zone and push yourself to do things you don’t normally do.

In terms of keeping myself motivated, there is one thing I’ve been doing differently this time around that I really think has made a big difference. In my post a few weeks ago about how it takes 21 days to make a habit, I wrote about how my goal was to make it 21 days and then go from there. While I was on my 21-day stretch, I marked each day on my calendar to remind myself how far I had already come. Well, I reached 21 days and for whatever reason decided to keep marking the days off on the calendar as each one passed.

This has helped the mental aspect of things tremendously when I have a bad day, or even a bad weekend. Rather than “starting over” the next day, I just carry on like nothing happened. I move on and don’t let the previous day’s “mistakes” affect my streak. It has also helped a lot with the guilt that we often face after overindulging or skipping workouts. I no longer feel like I have royally screwed up; I’ve just enjoyed and treated myself but I know I will do better the next day because I don’t want to have to end the streak. This last weekend was probably the worst weekend I’ve had in a while. Between Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I had Taco Bell, Jet’s pizza, went out for ice cream twice, and skipped my workouts on both Saturday and Sunday. Not surprisingly, my weight was up on Monday, but I just pushed forward and started tracking my food again; reminding myself to focus on the fact that I weighed 9 pounds less than I did 4 weeks ago. I also reminded myself how much I LOVE Jet’s pizza, and ice cream, and that I WILL eat it again. Having a bad day can really screw you up mentally and it SO EASY to just never get back on track. That’s why I’ve really been focusing on my mind set during the last 5 weeks. Every day, I look forward to marking another day on the calendar and starting with a fresh slate on my calorie-counting app (I use Lose It). Getting your mind in the right place is what will truly set you up for success.

I know that I will hit a wall at some point and that my motivation will tank to an all time low. I know that day will come when I will get frustrated and ask myself “why am I putting in all this effort and not seeing the results I want?” I know that time will come when I eat junk for multiple days in a row, see gains on the scale, and keep putting off “getting back on track.” I don’t know how I will handle those difficult times yet, but I am going to try and get ahead of the game by mentally preparing myself and coming up with a plan. I’ve done this before and I know I can do it again, but something went wrong the first time I lost weight and this time I’ve made it my mission to figure out what it was so I can avoid making the same mistake again.

I hope this post was helpful for some of you, and as always, thanks for reading.

I mentioned in last week’s post that I’ve really been enjoying getting back into the gym recently. Of course, it helps when your gym is brand spanking new and just about all of your local friends use the same one. We are always sharing tips and stories from our experiences there and it helps motivate me to keep going back. I’ve been making it my personal goal to exercise 4 days per week, and I’m happy to report that I have either been achieving or exceeding that goal for the last 3 weeks.

When I was still writing my old blog, some of the most common questions I received revolved around my workouts. People love food posts, and people love workout posts! I totally get it though, because if I’m reading a blog or website about someone’s food or fitness habits, I definitely want the nitty gritty details. It inspire me to hear exactly what other people are doing to better themselves and their health, which leads me to today’s topic – what I’ve been doing at the gym.

I personally find that I am most successful when I walk into the gym with a plan. The first time that I lost weight I would frequently write detailed weekly workout schedules, repeat each week four times to five times, then write a new one to keep myself from getting bored. I decided to use the same approach this time around, and so far it is working well to keep me focused and on track.

This is the workout schedule that I am currently using:

I start each workout with a 5 minute warm up on the elliptical, then move on to one of these four routines. I do not always work out on consecutive days, but I generally follow this order. For example, if the first day I exercise in a week is on a Monday, then I’ll do Day 1 on that day. If the next day happens to be Wednesday, then I’ll complete Day 2’s routine that day. Sometimes I will mix up the days depending on how I’m feeling, but I try to complete all four of the routines every week. If I go to the gym a fifth time in a week, it’s usually with my sister and we will just do whatever we feel like doing that day. It’s typically cardio combined with the Planet Fitness 30 Minute Workout, which I will go into more detail about shortly for those that aren’t familiar with it.

With regards to my cardio, I tend to get bored easily and don’t usually spend more than 20 minutes on a single machine. My cardio preferences are the elliptical, treadmill (walking only for now), stationary bike, and most recently the step mill. I used to use the step mill all the time back when I was in good shape, but haven’t used one in years. However, I decided to bring it back into my life since I know it is a phenomenal cardio workout. I don’t last more than 10 minutes on it right now, but that’s to be expected given the fact that I have only been exercising for three weeks. This is my current favorite step mill routine that I’ve been doing:

It may look a little confusing and hard to remember, but I promise it’s not. It’s just the same interval sequence repeated four times. The thirty seconds at level 7 really wipes me out, and then I get a break for 2 minutes before going again. I’m sure I will be coming up with something more challenging at some point, but for now this works for me.

The PF 30 Minute Workout that you see on Day 4 of my workout schedule is something that Planet Fitness offers that I have really been loving. It’s basically a designated area in the back of the gym that contains 20 stations – 10 machines and 10 steps. Each station is numbered, and the idea is to move from station to station, alternating a machine with a step, until you’ve completed all 20. There is a light in the front of the room (it looks like a traffic light) and when it turns green it means it’s time to workout, and when it turns red it means it’s time to wipe off your machine and move on to the next station. There is also a chart on the wall with ten different step exercises that you can do when you are on one of the steps.

These photos are not from my gym, but you get the idea. (I found this picture on a Google image search and when I tried to link the original website it warned me that it could be a phishing scam, so I’m opting not to.) What I love about the 30 Minute Workout is that it keeps my heart pumping the whole time and I am constantly moving for the entire 30 minutes without ever getting bored. I remember hearing about it a long time ago on The Biggest Loser and it’s fun to finally get to try it out.

I’m looking forward to seeing how my workouts change and progress as time goes on. It is always hard to get started and can be difficult to come up with a plan, but once I get that momentum going I am constantly thinking of new ideas and ways to challenge myself with my workouts. If you’d like me to start another Exercise Log page on my blog like I did on Healthy Berg, let me know and I’d be happy to do so.

After many, many months of subpar eating habits, I am ready to once again try and get some of this weight off that I’ve gained back over the last three years. If you are a long time reader and are familiar with my old blog (Hi! Thanks for sticking around all these years!), then you know that I dropped a LOT of weight in college. Since then, I’ve probably tried to start over at least 20 times as the weight piled back on exponentially like it unfortuantely does for so many people. It’s amazing how your mindset can do a complete 180 in situations like this. When you’re trying to lose weight, a 1/2 pound gain can completely ruin your week. However, when life is a free-for-all and you are not in “weight loss mode,” you play mind tricks on yourself to avoid dealing with the real problem in right in front of you. You get so used to seeing your weight go up by 5 or 10 pounds every time you step on the scale that you start to convince yourself that it’s okay, since it’s “only 5 pounds.” Well, we all know that all those pounds add up FAST.

In an effort to keep myself focused and try to prevent discouragement, I am concentrating on smaller, short term goals right now. When you have such a tremendous amount of weight to lose, it is so easy to get frustrated and give up. Currently, I am focusing on staying committed to calorie counting for 21 days. Supposedly, that’s how long it takes to create a habit and it should become easier to stick with a healthy eating regimen after that point. Today is day 13 and despite my frustrations with the scale this week (more on that in a minute), I have to say that I am pretty proud of my progress. I’ve tracked almost everything that I’ve eaten, and drastically cut down on junk food and sweets. I haven’t been getting sugar cravings every night like I used to (side note: I have an entire post coming on sugar addiction so stay tuned for that) and I’ve been in an overall better mood. Last week I worked 12 hours of overtime and by the end of my 8th day in a row of work I still felt like I had energy left to go out and do stuff. Normally I am totally wiped out after just 5 days.

I have also started to incorporate exercise back into my life, and that has been a wake up call in another sense. For one, none of my old workout clothes fit me. I’m a firm believer that feeling comfortable and confident in what you wear while exercising can really improve the quality of your workouts. When you feel good, you work harder. So I bought some new workout clothes (in fun, bright colors to boot) and I look forward to putting them on and heading over to the gym. Additionally, since I’ve been slowly adding back some of the exercises I used to do years ago, I’ve learned that things that used to be so easy are now quite challenging. It’s crazy to me that I used to hop on the treadmill and run 3 miles on a regular basis, and now 5 minutes on the elliptical gets me out of breath.

Speaking of the gym, Traverse City got a brand new Planet Fitness that just opened a couple weeks ago and I am LOVING it. I’ve been to most of the gyms around here and this one puts the others to shame. There’s only a couple of gyms in Traverse that, in my opinion, could be actual competition for Planet Fitness but a PF membership is a fraction of the cost of those other places. Major win in my book. My sister and her fiancé recently moved back to the area and they also both got memberships at PF. While we have different schedules and don’t work out together every day, it’s nice having a gym buddy on the weekends.

I’ll go into more detail about what I’m eating and what I’m doing at the gym in future posts, but I want to address the comment I made earlier about the scale. So, the first week I started counting calories again I dropped weight FAST. I made major improvements with my food choices but still had a few “cheat meals” and wasn’t really exercising much, and I still lost 5 pounds like it was nothing. Naturally, this week I expected to lose at least another 3 or 4 pounds since I’m doing the same things as last week; plus I’ve started going to the gym again. However, that was not the case and I did not lose one single ounce this week. Of course this irritates me, so I’ve been doing a lot of reading on week 2 plateaus to try and ease my frustrations. From what I’ve been reading, I’ve gathered two explanations for it:

Water retention. When you drastically reduce your calories and change the kinds of foods you are eating, your body initially responds with a quick weight loss. However, after the initial loss, your fat cells hold onto water in an effort to retain their shape (fat cells shrink when you lose weight) and this is what causes a plateau. Soon that water will be flushed out and your weight should begin dropping again.

Cortisol. This is a stress hormone that is released as your body starts to adjust to exercise. Cortisol also causes water retention, which temporarily halts weight loss. Cortisol is also the reason that people tend to gain weight when they are stressed (with the exception of stress starvers).

Since I am not a nutritionist, nor do I have a background in exercise science, I do not know how valid these explanations are. However, I do have a doctor of pharmacy degree and they both make sense to me from a medical and physiological stand point. Regardless of the reason for the week 2 plateau, it just makes me feel better knowing that there are tons of other people who have experienced the same thing and I’m confident that I will get past it if I just keep working hard. I’ve also been looking at my old weigh-ins from years ago when I lost weight the first time around, and my weigh-ins have always been inconsistent from week to week. It’s not about short-term results; it’s about what happens in the long run. While my weight may have fluctuated over the weeks, I lost an average of 50 pounds a year for two years.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks. I will try to update a couple times a month but let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like me to post about 🙂

I can’t believe 2015 has already come to an end. Much like 2014, a lot of exciting things happened in my life and it was definitely a year I will never forget. Highlights included traveling to Dominican Republic with some of my best friends from college, moving back to Traverse City, and of course – the most exciting part of all – building my house!

I’ve been living here for almost four months now and things are going absolutely wonderfully. I LOVE my house – like, literally love everything about it. I have noticed though that it has definitely turned me into more of a homebody; I have only spent a couple of nights away from my house since I moved in. For someone that used to get a petsitter just about every other weekend, that is kind of a big deal for me. But ya know, it’s a nice change and a good feeling to feel settled.

Looking back on the last few years, I can easily describe them in a word. 2012 was the year of graduation. I finished college, passed my boards and started work as a pharmacist, and got my first apartment. 2013 was a year of struggle. My grandpa passed away, my boyfriend and I split up, I started putting on weight, and I got involved with a couple of real idiots who did nothing but make me feel bad about myself. 2014 was the year of travel. Not only did I go on a lot of amazing trips (including The Bahamas, New York City, and Miami), but it was also the year that I MOVED to Grand Rapids. I was all about change that year, and wanted to do and see as much as I could.

This brings us to 2015. It was a little more challenging to come up with a word to describe this past year, but I think homecoming is a perfect fit. In the literal sense, I moved back to my hometown after being gone for a year, where I then built an actual home for myself. In a metaphorical sense, I sort of feel like I started to find myself again after spending so much time “searching.” It’s hard to explain, but for the longest time I was constantly doing different things to try and figure out who I am and what I want out of life. The answer is not always that complicated though; I was turning it into something it wasn’t and ended up on a wild goose chase all the way to Grand Rapids. Not that I regret that move for a second, because I wouldn’t be sitting on my comfy couch in my own house writing this right now if I hadn’t done that. My point is, that I finally feel like I am where I’m meant to be and that now I can just let life happen. I’m happy with what I have, and I’m not stressed about what I don’t have. For once in my life, I am not worried about what’s next.

I obviously don’t have a word for 2016 yet. Although I do have some predictions, I think I’ll just keep those to myself ;). I am looking forward to a year with no major plans (and NO MOVES! YES!), and I’ll be focusing on really making some headway on my student loans that were somewhat neglected last year while I was saving for my house. I can’t wait to see what 2016 has in store for me.

F – Favorite Song: I honestly really don’t think I have one. I like all kinds of music.

G – Grossest Memory: Oh man, you asked for it…

One time when I was in high school I went on a trip with my classmates to Cedar Point and I stayed in a hotel room with 2 other girls and one of their moms. We were getting ready for bed, and I really, really had to poop. You know how it is when your 16 – that stuff’s embarrassing and you don’t want anyone to know. I had started to feel the need to go at around 7:00 pm and by this point it was close to 11, so you can imagine the discomfort I was feeling.

I contemplated waiting until everyone was in bed and then sneaking in the bathroom to go, but it was just too quiet. Everyone will hear me. Nope, that’s not going to work. (And no, I didn’t know about the turning-on-the-bathroom-faucet trick at that point.) So I just lied in bed, tossing and turning and squirming until I seriously COULD NOT HOLD IT any longer. I stood up and thought, crap, its coming. (No pun intended.)

So I grabbed a room key and ran out the door, all the way down to the hotel lobby bathrooms. At this point in time, I had to go so bad that I honestly didn’t know if I was going to make it to the bathroom. I finally ran in, slammed the stall door shut, pulled my pants down and immediately realized that I was too late. Yep, I had shit my pants.

I finished my business, threw my underwear in the bathroom trash and buried it under a bunch of paper towels, and walked back up to my room. I put on a fresh pair of underwear and finally got in bed to go to sleep. I’m not sure if anyone was still awake, or if anyone heard me leave the room and come back (which was actually not allowed since we were in high school and should have been accompanied by a chaperone), but no one ever said anything.

I seriously cannot believe I just shared that story on the internet.

H – Hometown: Traverse City, MI

I – In Love With: My little fur baby!

J – Jealous Of: One of my good friends from pharmacy school who just finished paying off all of her student loans – and she graduated the year AFTER me and had MORE debt than I did! I wish I had her dedication.

K – Kindest Person You Know: my friend Leah; I don’t think she has a mean bone in her body!

L – Longest Relationship: A little over a year of serious dating, but we dated off/on for a year before that and were friends for 3 years before that.

M – Middle Name: Ann

N – Number of Siblings: 1 younger sister

O – One Wish: That I can close on my house before Labor Day weekend!

P – Person You Spoke To On The Phone Last: My dad. He’s on a motorcycle trip down south with a bunch of his buddies. I love seeing all their selfies on Facebook. Ha!

S – Song You Last Sang: Something from the dance mix that is currently playing in my car.

T – Time You Woke Up: 9:02 am. Slept in today and it felt so good!

U – Underwear Color: pink and grey

V – Vacation Destination: I love going anywhere tropical, especially in the winter, but my DREAM vacation is to go to Europe! I would absolutely love to go on a European cruise because it would be such an easy way to see so many different places!

W – Worst Habit: Facebook stalking people I shouldn’t be Facebook stalking. We’ll just leave it at that.

X – X-Rays You’ve Had: My foot when I broke it in college. I tripped over myself at my party and had to wear a boot for like 3 months. Not my proudest moment.

Y – Your Favorite Food: The spinach dip at Short’s Brewery in Bellaire! I can put back a whole bowl of that stuff by myself. It’s THAT GOOD.

I thought it would be fun to start a little series on the blog called “Scenes from the Weekend,” or SFTW for short. As you probably could figure out from the title, a SFTW post is going to highlight some of the assorted weekend happenings I want to share that don’t necessarily form a coherent blog post when pasted all together. It’s a lot easier for me to condense my writing into one post, rather than trying to post something different for each topic. I think consolidation is key if I want to develop any sort of regular blogging routine. I’ll try to get these up at least 2 or 3 times a month, but I can’t promise every week because let’s be real – sometimes I literally do nothing on the weekend and therefore have nothing to write about.

Friday

My weekend kicked off with a little present I bought for myself – a new patio set!

It’s currently set up on my parent’s deck so we all can enjoy it until I move out. I’ve had my eye on it for about 3 months now and it finally went on sale a few weeks ago. The 25% off sale combined with my 10% off coupon I received from the post office (they send you tons of coupons if you change your address!) gave me a pretty nice discount on this set. Everything is from Lowes (it’s this table and the matching chairs) and I am in love with it. On Friday night my dad and I picked it up and then hauled it all out to the back deck, where I pretty much camped out for the rest of the night. I did my nails, had a glass of wine and watched YouTube videos – what more could a girl need?

Saturday

Saturday was my friend Amanda’s bachelorette party! Amanda is one of my really good friends here in TC. She and her fiancé used to be my next door neighbors at my old apartment and we also coincidently have mutual friends up here, despite the fact that both of them are from downstate. Amanda is also my realtor (bless her heart) and a few months ago she asked me to stand up in her wedding. I love this girl and can’t wait for her big day on the 29th!

[Side note – does anyone else say “real-i-tor” instead of “real-tor?” I just noticed it when I was writing the previous paragraph and spellcheck caught my spelling of “realitor,” which I had obviously spelled phonetically. This of course led me to a Google search where it was confirmed that I been saying/pronouncing/spelling it wrong THIS WHOLE TIME. Poor Amanda, I wonder how many times she has wanted to correct me over the past 8 months?!]

For her bachelorette party, a group of us girls set sail on the Nauti-cat, a boat that leaves from the Holiday Inn and sails back and forth across the bay for 2 hours.

The weather was perfect and the views were incredible. There is also a bar on board; unfortunately drinks are not included but they were relatively inexpensive and they accepted credit cards. Also, it’s possible that more than one shotski may have happened.

On Saturday night we ended up back at Amanda’s house for a taco bar and an evening full of some pretty crazy games. Her maid of honor found all these ridiculous Minute to Win It games and she kept us busy with them all night. It was actually a lot of fun though, and pretty refreshing to attend a bachelorette party that didn’t involve bar hopping and getting completely intoxicated. I won’t go into detail with all of the games we played, but if you google “Minute to Win It games” you’ll get the idea 😉 It was actually a lot of fun and we all spent the evening laughing hysterically.

Sunday

Sunday was a pretty low key day for me, as it usually is. I slept in, ran some errands, did my grocery shopping, and watched Bachelor in Paradise with my mom. (Anyone else watching? I said I wasn’t going to but then I started…and now I’m hooked and I can’t stop! BTW I hate Joe.)

I’m trying to have a somewhat healthy week, so I picked up some good snack options at the grocery store including fruit, protein bars and hummus.

I also – drum roll please – did some food prepping on Sunday! It’s been a while since I spent any sort of time prepping food for the week, but I’m so glad I did because it is just so, so convenient during the week and it also drastically reduces the odds of me spending money and eating junk for lunch.

I washed a bunch of fruit and I also put together a tasty veggie pizza.

Unfortunately something funky happened with my pizza dough and I ended up with this:

No big deal though, I just worked around it.

I sliced it up into a bunch of small pieces to pack for lunch through out the week. Yum.

So far the week is going well in the food department, but it’s also only Tuesday. Let’s hope it continues!

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What’s the goofiest bachelorette party game you’ve ever played?
A few years ago I went to one where we had to draw a random photo of a celebrity out of a hat, and then find a guy at the bar who looked like that celebrity and take a picture with him. It was challenging!